This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) Welcome back for day two of week five of our look at the book of
Isaiah. We're looking at what God has to say about how He comforts us in this
world. Comfort, comfort, oh my people, this chapter begins.

And we looked yesterday at the truth, the first of six truths in this chapter,
that God comforts our guilt by His grace. There's a second truth that we find
beginning in verse three, and that is the truth that God comforts our
frustrations by preparing a way out. He comforts our frustrations by preparing a
way out.

Verse three, a voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be
raised up, every mountain and hill will be made low. The rough ground shall
become level, the rugged places a plain, and the glory of the Lord will be
revealed, and all mankind together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has
spoken.

God comforts our frustrations. We face frustrations in this world while we're
waiting to get to heaven. You might be frustrated by yourself.

You feel trapped in your temptations. You feel trapped maybe in this cycle of
seeing the same sin again and again and again and again seem to catch you. Or
you feel trapped in your frustrations with yourself in that you see the promise
of what God might be able to do in your life, but you can't seem to have faith.

You don't feel like you can hope in God. You might feel frustrated by yourself,
or you might be frustrated by your problems. You feel trapped in your
circumstances.

There just seems to be no way out. Isaiah 40, verses three to five are written
to a group of people who were in exile. They were trapped, they were in prison.

There was no way out of their exile. And God says, "I'm making in the desert a
highway. " Now, for them, this was a highway that was a way out of their
captivity, a way out of the place that they felt trapped.

There was a desert between them where they were in captivity and getting back to
Israel, the promised land. How are they going to get there? God says, "I'm going to
build a way there.

"I'm going to prepare a way out. " God not only promised to Israel that you're
going to return. He says, "I'm going to pave, I'm going to smooth, "I'm going to ease the
way for your return.

"I'm going to prepare the way out of your frustrations. " As a follower of Jesus,
you know that it often seems that there's a desert between you and God's
promise. I know where I am and the frustrations I'm living with in myself, and I
know God's promise.

How do I get from here to there? God says, "I'll prepare a way. "If you'll
follow my way, I'll prepare a way.

" Now, you don't get there in a day. It's step by step by step, but God prepares
a way because it takes some time. Sometimes we want to get there faster.

We try to prepare a way, but it never gets us there. It always loops us back
right to where we were at the beginning. God has made a way, and we all know who
is the way.

Jesus is our highway in the desert. He's our highway between temptation and
victory, between apathy and love. You might remember, you might recognize that
these words were used of John the Baptist as he prepared the way of Jesus,
smoothing the way.

He would be the one who would smooth the way for the Lord to come. God wants to
bring his comfort into your life, even in your frustrations, by preparing a way.
So the question with each of these, we started yesterday, is what's it going to be?

Are you going to comfort yourself, or are you going to let God comfort you? With our
frustrations, we tend to comfort ourselves by building our own way of escape.
And maybe escape is the crucial word there.

We all like to escape. If we could just get somewhere else, then I wouldn't have
the frustrations anymore. So we run away, instead of running towards what God
has for us.

But when you run away, the opposite direction of the promised land, guess what?
You end up farther and farther from God's promise in your life. Now, instead of
escape, you say, God, what is your way?

You let God comfort you. You take his way out. Jesus is the way.

Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the life. And he leads you step by step into God's
promise in your life.

Now, I don't want you to miss verse five in what we just read. Remember, it said
at the end of this that God's way, in the end, is going to reveal God's glory.
God's glory will be revealed.

This is more than just God making things easy on us for our comfort by providing
a way. That the way that God has smoothed shows the world how powerful, how
glorious God really is. So when you follow God's way, you're God's witness,
you're God's example of what God can do in a person's life.

And again, it doesn't happen in a day. Step by step on that highway through the
desert, God will lead you in his way, even in the midst of your frustrations.
That's how God comforts us.

The third way in this chapter that God comforts us, beginning in verse six, God
comforts our disappointments with his lasting word. Verse six to verse eight
says this. A voice says, cry out.

And I said, what shall I cry? All people are like grass, and all their
faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers
fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them.

Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the
word of our God endures forever. If you want to live with heart comfort in this
world, you'll have to accept two basic truths that are told to us in these
verses.

Truth number one, all people are like grass. They just don't last. He says here
that faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.

The best we can do isn't enough. It dries up and it blows away. The grass
withers, it says here.

This is a reminder that our physical strength doesn't last, that our greatest
achievements will soon fade from memory. From the perspective of eternity, the
most glorious that we have to offer in this world, it's going to fade as quickly as
the spring grasses. As soon as there's no water on them, they're gone.

Now that could be pretty depressing if that's all there was, but that's not
God's point here. He's telling us to not build our hope on that which will not
last, because when you do, you're not going to be comforted. You're going to be
constantly disappointed, because you built your hope on this and it didn't last.

You built your hope on this and it didn't last. You built your hope on building
this business, but guess what? One day, you're going to be out of that business.

You built your hope on building some great physical strength that you have, some
great beauty that you have, but guess what? Strength doesn't last, beauty
doesn't last. He says, don't build your hope on that which will not last.

Instead, he says, here's the second great truth. The word of the Lord will
stand. The word of the Lord will stand.

So that's where you build your hope. God's word will last forever. That's the
foundation to build your life on.

So as with each of these, are you going to comfort yourself or are you going to let
God comfort you? In this world, when we try to comfort ourselves, when it comes
to our disappointments, we end up in a desperate chase to make it last. Just one
day longer, just a little bit more to make it last.

If I could just make it last a little longer, maybe my disappointment won't be
there. But we all know one day, it's not going to last. One day, we're going to die.

One day, it's going to be over. And that, being in the back of your mind, will
cause you to live in constant disappointment if that's all you have, if you try
to comfort yourself in this world where things don't last. Now instead, let God
comfort you.

Just right now, receive the wonderful assurance that what's built on God's word
will last. The character that he's building in your life, the influence that
you've had in other people's lives, the prayers that you've prayed, the love
that you have for him, the faithful things that you've done in that business
that you've built, in that family that you've grown, those things are going to last
forever, forever. The word of the Lord will stand.

You can count on that. That's how God comforts us in this world. Then in these
verses, verse 11, I want to look at, there's a fourth way that God comforts us of
these six that we see in Isaiah 40.

God comforts our days by being our shepherd. We need comfort in the day to day.
And he does that by being our shepherd.

Isaiah 40, 11, this beautiful verse says, he tends his flock like a shepherd. He
gathers the lambs in his arms and he carries them close to his heart. He gently
leads those that have young.

This verse reminds us that the sovereign, the almighty God is our shepherd. The
greatness of God is expressed in your life in an everyday way in his care for
you as one of his sheep. Look here at the four-fold picture, even in this one
verse, of what it means for God to be our shepherd.

He reminds us that as our shepherd, he tends his flock, he gathers his lambs, he
carries them close, and he gently leads them. He gives them comfort in the day
to day. And you need that, I need that today.

God wants to tend your life today, to help you to grow through any circumstance
of life, to be with you through any circumstance of life. He wants to gather you
today together with him to help you to sense his presence. He wants to carry you
close today in the victories and in the disappointments.

He carries you close, and he wants to gently lead you along the way. That gives
us comfort in the day to day. So, are you going to comfort yourself, or are you
going to let God comfort you?

To comfort yourself when it comes to the day to day is the seize the day
attitude. I gotta take the day, I gotta make this happen, if I make this happen,
I'm going to have a great day. But after a while, that just gets wearying.

Even for the most positive of us, even for the most energetic of us, there comes
a day when you don't want to seize the day. What do you do on those days? Well,
that and every other day, you let God comfort you.

Instead of seize the day, it's let God guide you through the day. 'Cause he's
going to guide you to greater things than you could ever seize. He's going to direct
you to greater things than you could ever accomplish on your own.

So you let him gently lead you, you let him carry you, you let him guide you
through this day. Let's trust him for that right now in prayer. Would you pray
with me?

Father, help us to trust you as our shepherd today. Help us to trust you through
this day to tend our lives, to gather us to you, to carry us close, to gently
lead us. Help us to trust you for the comfort we need in this world rather than
trusting ourselves, our accomplishments, our energy.

We trust you right now as our leader, as our shepherd. In Jesus' name we trust
you, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to end our look together at the truth about God's
comfort from Isaiah 40.